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"From a rural high school to a Russian Lyceum, Mary Sue Burns learns at lot from her students"

May 4, 2014

2013 TGC fellow Mary Sue Burns, a science teacher from West Virginia, was featured in her local newspaper, the Register Herald, for the amazing, lasting connections to global perspectives that she is helping her students to make upon her return from Russia in April 2014. The article, which can be found here, offers excellent insight into the challenges that both students and teachers face when encountering a new culture, as well as the immense value in being open to these cultural and societal differences.

Mr. Oh! Goes to Russia

April 24, 2014

TGC fellow
Jeff Ofstedahl was featured in his local newspaper for the excellent
work he is doing with his students after returning to his Arizona classroom from his International Field Experience in Russia!
For the whole story and some wonderful photos, please click here.

Interview with a TGC Fellow

April 21, 2014

2013 TGC Fellow Joanne Clyde gave an
awesome interview to her local paper about her international field experience
in Russia this past April. Here is one of our favorite quotes from the
interview:

"This program is so very important and not just because of the travel ...
Our world is becoming so much more interconnected and we have no idea what our
students are going to face in the future. We're teaching them skills for jobs
that don't exist yet, so being able to think globally and how to interact with
other cultures is so vital. This whole program has been the most rewarding
experience in my professional career." - Joanne Clyde

2013 TGC fellow Shiloh Francis, a history teacher at Castle High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, was
featured in a local newspaper for a peace studies initiative she has created
for her students for their World War II unit. Along with writing
traditional haiku and tanka style poems from the perspective of Pearl Harbor
bombing victims, Francis' students have made thousands of paper cranes as a
Pearl Harbor memorial. Francis' students are now working on another
thousand cranes to bring with them to a student field trip to Japan in 2014.
For the full story, please see the Windward Oahu Cover story here.

According to the US Department of Education, the United States
ranks 25th in mathematics and 17th in science among industrialized nations,
representing a dire need for students to study and achieve in those areas.
Fellows in the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program (TGC) are
trying to accomplish that by encouraging student participation in STEM
(science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields with a global context.“No matter what the focus in your life is, technology is an
inescapable part,” said David Prince, a math teacher at Long Beach High School
in Long Beach, New York. “Math and science are international languages. The
Pythagorean theorem holds true no matter what country you’re from.”

STEM education helps students think critically and prepare for the
possibility that their ideas might be used in innovation and technology –
helping to answer the need for STEM professionals and pushing the US forward
among other nations.

“Especially in San Antonio, there is very little desire to leave
the community,” said Cheri McNeely, a science teacher at Whittier Middle School
in San Antonio, Texas. “I’m trying to be an ambassador for them to show that
this is important. We need to be able to develop relationships with other
countries to further technology and cultural understanding.”

Of the 72 teachers in this year’s TGC cohort, 16 teach in various
STEM fields. Science teacher Gilbert Amadi teaches inner-city students at
Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, California. He uses topics such as energy to
discuss how issues personally affect the students and their communities.

“We talk about renewable energy sources and [the students] begin
to appreciate that the world is becoming just a village,” said Amadi. “Many of
them have not traveled outside of their environment. However, through the
programs we have in physics, chemistry and robotics, we are trying to let them
be aware of what is happening outside of their locality.”

Funded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX, TGC gives
teachers the skills needed to globalize education in their
classrooms through a year-long professional development opportunity with an
international exchange component.

At the Global Education Symposium in
Washington, DC, the STEM teachers and others prepared for their travels to six
different countries: Colombia, Ghana, India, Morocco, Philippines, and Russia.

“If you [participate] in these exchanges, you get to meet up with
the best of the best from all over the world,” said Emily Torlak, a science
teacher at Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida. “You get to share
ideas and collaborate, and then you bring those ideas back to your school where
you share with your peers and your county. It’s a trickle-down effect.
Ultimately, we want to prepare our kids to be world citizens, especially in
science. What we do in our country impacts everyone else. Global education is a
necessity.”

After
traveling to an all-girls school in Ghana and learning of the significant need
for books to improve literacy, inner-city Philadelphia high school teacher
Bonnee Breese saw the importance of creating an opportunity for global
education and understanding. She established a book drive for Ghana at her
school in Philadelphia, which her students helped manage and implement as they
learned about global competencies.

“[The
trip] connected me greatly to Ghana and to girls, in a time where people are
really paying attention to girls and literacy,” said Breese. “I’m riding a wave
that I didn’t imagine ever happening.”

Through
the Teachers for Global Classrooms (TGC) Program,
US secondary school teachers like Breese participate in a year-long
professional development program where they develop skills as practitioners and
become ambassadors of global pedagogy in order to catalyze global education in
their classrooms, schools and communities. The program includes an
international field experience where they learn about education systems, visit
schools and meet with education leaders. This year, 78 teachers from 36 states
traveled to Brazil, Ghana, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia, Morocco and Ukraine.
At the post-travel TGC Global Education Symposium, teachers shared their
experiences abroad and how they infused global perspectives in their
classrooms.

Jennice
Wright, a middle school teacher from rural Missouri, traveled to India through
TGC and brought back ideas to create space for change in a culturally isolated
education setting. Using popular culture, music and street art in the Arab
Spring as a medium for understanding, Wright hopes to get students more deeply
interested in global issues and conversations about justice-oriented
citizenship.

“We’re
starting to see students think beyond their bubbles,” she said. “I’m working on
taking the global education conversation to local districts, national
conferences [and] board meetings. I think we need to have more conversations
about globalizing culturally isolated classrooms.”

After
experiencing the education system in Kazakhstan, middle school teacher Robert
Dent wanted to focus on the writing process and the recognition of cultural
similarities and differences among students back home and abroad. By creating
an international poetry project, he was able to maintain a focus on content
while globally changing his classroom.

“[Global education is] essential for
[the] growing interconnectedness of our world,” said Dent. “The types of
problems that we’re facing today, and will continue to face in the future,
cannot be solved by single countries. They have to be solved by multiple
countries working together.”

By
simplifying the complex ideas of global education and cultural understanding
through field experience, collaborative networks and activities, TGC teachers
enhance learning and help students grow to foster an international perspective
in the classroom.

“For
teenagers, [global education is] really important because it takes them outside
of themselves,” said Breese. “They need connections to the world, not just to a
15 block radius.”

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About TGC

Teachers for Global Classrooms is a year-long professional development program for elementary, middle and secondary teachers in the United States. The program aims to globalize teaching and learning in U.S. classrooms. TGC is a program of the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural affairs, and administered by IREX.
The program begins with an 8-week graduate level online course on globalizing the classroom, followed by a Global Education Symposium in Washington, D.C. The fellows then have a 2-3 week international travel fellowship in one of 6 countries determined by the State Department.
The 2015-2016 TGC cohort is made up of 82 elementary and secondary teachers from across the United States.